An Angel for Christmas

by Heather Graham

  “If your son touches me, I’ll see that he does jail time, too,” DeFeo warned.

  “And if you touch my son, I’ll blow your head off,” Mike promised.

  Bobby walked straight for DeFeo. “Listen, buddy, if you’re legit, and we all wind up at a police station looking like fools, we’ll take our chances in court,” he said.

  “You’re risking your lives!” DeFeo said, standing still as Bobby found the cuffs he did have hooked to his belt and slipped them around DeFeo’s wrists. “I’m telling you, he’s the criminal. If you hold me against my will, he’ll find a way to kill me, and slaughter you and your whole family in your beds!”

  “We’re not taking any chances,” Mike said. “We’re not taking chances—with anyone. I’m going to disbelieve both of you—until we learn the truth. Morwenna, get in the house. I have good nylon rope in the pantry. I want Gabe tied up, too.”

  Morwenna stared back at her father, blinking.

  “Morwenna!”

  She looked down at Gabe, stunned to realize that they really didn’t know. If Gabe was a crook, he could be damn good at deceiving people. It felt as if the cold suddenly swept through her. Why wouldn’t he have killed them last night?

  Because he’d wanted his turkey, that’s why.

  Gabe looked up and said calmly, “Get the rope, like your father says. Keep us both tied up, and away from the house. Keep your family safe.”

  “But, Daddy,” Genevieve began.

  “Hush,” Shayne said softly.

  “Connor, Genevieve, come with me, please,” Morwenna said, and hurried into the house. Stacy was standing in the parlor, looking out the window, her face knit in a worried frown.

  “Morwenna?”

  “That guy showed up, saying Gabe is a crook, and that he himself is a cop,” Morwenna explained briefly.

  “I was so worried when I saw your father get the shotgun. I tried the phone again, but that and the computer are still down, too. We’ve got electricity, but the television is all static. Morwenna, what are we going to do?”

  “Keep them both tied up until we can get help,” Morwenna said.

  “We’re on a mountaintop!” Stacy said.

  “Mom, Dad has it covered. Besides, we have cars,” Morwenna assured her.

  Morwenna hurried back out, disturbed to see that her mother had come out to the front without even bothering to put on her coat. Though she had locked the door behind her, with the children inside.

  She rushed by her, though. Gabe was standing a distance from Luke DeFeo. He offered his hands to her as she approached him.

  “Behind his back!” DeFeo said. “Like you did me!”

  “Wait!” Stacy said. She walked forward into the group. “One of these men is a criminal, and we really don’t know what kind of criminal. But one of them isn’t. And we’re not breaking any arms or starving either of them. Tie their hands in front. We have the shotgun, and there are five of us adults here—we can watch them.”

  Shayne walked over to their mother. “Mom, we can’t know how long until the phone and computer are back up, and it looks like we might have more bad weather coming in. We have to make sure that these guys are secure.”

  He pointed to the sky; it had been so blue.

  Now, gray clouds were hovering. Strange gray clouds. Morwenna couldn’t tell if they were coming from east or west, north or south. But they seemed to be converging over their house.

  “We’ll take turns watching them,” Stacy insisted.

  Gabe lifted his hands.

  “Secure, Morwenna!” her father called.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Gabe didn’t move. She was close to him. The subtle scent of the cologne she had given him seemed to sweep around her. She looked at him. His eyes remained steady, green and open.

  She looked down and tied his hand securely in a clove hitch. Her father, still keeping an eye on Luke DeFeo as Bobby recinched the metal cuffs, walked over to see that she had tied the knot correctly. He nodded his approval.

  “Now what?” DeFeo asked. He let out a sigh. His voice changed to something that was just weary. “This is ridiculous, honestly. You all need to help me. You seem like a nice family. I don’t want you running into trouble. If you don’t see what’s going on here soon, you will face jail time, and you’ve just afforded yourselves a miserable day. You’re going to spend your Christmas staring at the two of us. I would have taken this wretch back to justice!”

  “And how were you going to do that?” Mike MacDougal asked him, his words barking. Morwenna imagined him in a courtroom. Her father, she knew, often managed to get people to say things they had surely never intended to say. “You came by foot.”

  “I’d have walked the bastard down the mountain,” DeFeo said, his tone angry again. Then he seemed to gain control. “Look, you’ve all been fooled. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here.”

  “That’s right,” Shayne said quietly. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

  “And there’s no way in hell anyone is walking anyone down the mountain,” Stacy said. “It’s a hard trip at best—hours walking in spring. There is weather coming in again.”

  “That’s right, and you should let me handle it. We’ll be out of your way in a moment,” DeFeo pleaded.

  “So…what now?” Morwenna asked.

  Mike looked at the sky. “It may clear up soon enough,” he said. “I can’t tell right now exactly what the weather is going to do, but I think it would be foolhardy to try to reach even the village right now. Looks like we’ll have to hold tight for a while.”

  “The garage and the shed,” Stacy said. “You’ve got to keep them separated, and out of the wind. As soon as the weather clears, we’ll get them both down to the tavern. They must have a way to reach some kind of help there.”

  “Bobby, you’re on watch with Gabe. Shayne, you take DeFeo. The toolshed is empty. I brought the shovel and anything else anyone could use as a weapon into the house once we had a guest in the house,” Mike said, glancing toward Gabe. “Shayne, you keep the shotgun. God knows what someone could find in the garage. I’ll spell you in thirty minutes. Morwenna, you’ll take over for Bobby.”

  Morwenna nodded. Neither of the men offered resistance as they were brought, handcuffed, to their respective places, Mike behind them both.

  Morwenna looked up. The sky was darkening, and it couldn’t have been later than ten in the morning.

  As her father walked back to the house, he said, “I guess we’ll have turkey later, Stacy. As soon as we can, we’ll head down to Scott’s Tavern with these two men.”

  Stacy started to walk into the house, and then she paused, looking at her husband. “The cemetery is on the way,” she said.

  “Stacy, we’ve got a criminal on our hands, and—depending on which man you believe—one of them might be a murderer.”

  Stacy straightened her shoulders. “The weather is going to be iffy all day. The cemetery is on the way to the village. It will only take a minute or two.”

  “Stacy,” Mike said, “we could walk all the way and get rid of these two guys—”

  “Mike! There’s no guarantee that we’ll have any communication when we reach the village, and no guarantee that there will be someone there who can watch them. This may remain our burden until we can get help up the mountain. The cemetery is on the way—we’re going to stop briefly. We can keep the shotgun on them for one minute while we say a prayer. I’m still saying my Christmas prayers over my family’s graves!”

  With that, Stacy walked firmly into the house. Mike followed, but the door slammed in his face. He turned and looked at Morwenna and the kids. “All right, so the cemetery is on the way. How ridiculous is all this? One of us will stand with the shotgun trained on the two of them, and we’ll say a prayer—in a graveyard. Christmas!”

  He didn’t say it, but Morwenna could almost imagine that he did.

  Christmas! Bah, humbug!

  “Look, I’m really s
orry about this,” Bobby said. And then, a little edge of doubt crept in. How often had he seen his father exhausted when a judge had ruled out key evidence and the jury was being swayed because the con could speak so persuasively?

  Did he want to believe in this guy because this guy wanted him to believe in him?

  “At least, I think I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  “It’s all right. Man is a creature who must see something, hold it, find it tangible, before he really believes,” Gabe said.

  “He is wearing the uniform,” Bobby pointed out.

  “So he is.”

  Gabe walked ahead of Bobby into the shed.

  There were two little windows in the small building, so light could come in. When there was light. Right now, the sky was darkening. Bobby ushered Gabe in; even out of the growing wind, though, the shed was cold. The garage, he figured, was just as cold. But there were lights in the garage; several of them. The shed had one overhanging bulb. Bobby turned it on. It provided some light. A concrete floor had been poured years before, but the concrete emanated cold.

  Gabe sat down against the back wall. There were wooden shelves and brackets, but, as his dad had said, the few tools they usually kept there had been brought into the house. His father, he realized, was a smart man.

  “Bobby, there’s nothing in this shed I could use to hurt anyone, if I had that in mind,” Gabe said. “You don’t have to stay out here—it’s freezing.”

  “Yeah, it’s cold,” Bobby said briefly. “When Morwenna comes, I’ll see to it that you get some blankets out here. And, hopefully, this won’t last long. We’ll get you both down to the tavern, or we’ll get law enforcement up here one way or the other.”

  Gabe nodded. “Hard to tell. If a bad storm comes in…” He grinned. “Too bad you didn’t bring your guitar. I’d be entertained. Honored, actually. And, at least you’ve said what you needed to say to your family now. You’ve got it in you.”

  Bobby laughed. “You want to know the funniest thing? I had confidence, and I had hope. But now that I’ve spit it all out, I’m suddenly afraid.”

  Gabe thought about that for a minute. “Well, before, if you failed, you were just failing yourself. Now, in your mind, if you were to fail, you’d be failing them instead.”

  “Failing everyone,” Bobby murmured.

  “Personally, I think the only way you fail is if you never try,” Gabe said lightly.

  Gabe seemed comfortable enough—he was shivering a little—but he seemed relaxed. Resigned, maybe. They might have been having a conversation in a warm kitchen over a cup of coffee.

  But, Bobby thought, if he’d wanted to, Gabe could suddenly…

  Head butt him?

  “I’m telling you the truth,” Gabe said, as if reading his mind. “I’m the cop—he’s the bad guy.”

  “And I want to believe you,” Bobby said.

  “I’m glad.”

  “But I can’t let you go.”

  “I know that. I understand.”

  “My mother, my sister…my niece and nephew…they are all vulnerable here,” Bobby said.

  “I know. I told you…I understand.”

  Bobby walked away from the door, looking up at the sky.

  It seemed the darkness was closing in all around them, but in the center of it all, there was light. Maybe the weather would break.

  He prayed heartily that it would do so…and soon.

  Shayne leaned against his car, the shotgun in his hand as he stared at the man in the Virginia State Police uniform.

  The guy wasn’t fighting with him. He was just leaning against the garage, staring at him with a hard look that made his features severe.

  “I wish you’d listen to me,” DeFeo said at last. “You look like an intelligent guy. You can see that I’m a cop, no matter what kind of story that guy gave you. Look, he’s got that green-eyed thing going for him. He knows how to say all the right things. That’s how he managed to break out. He was being transferred from one facility to another, talked the guard into letting him have a cigarette—then bashed the poor fellow’s head halfway in. You should be worried—that’s your sister, I take it—and your mom. And your children. You’ve got a lot at stake here. Think about it. He’s been using you.”

  “He could have killed us in our sleep last night or robbed the place blind,” Shayne said. “He didn’t.”

  DeFeo sighed. “Ted Bundy.”

  “What?”

  “Ted Bundy. The serial killer. You know he actually babysat for his neighbor, right? John Wayne Gacy—he was a clown. Hey, kids love clowns. Don’t you get it—the good-guy thing is an act.”

  “He’s been acting well enough to win an Oscar,” Shayne said. His voice was even. His pulse was racing. What if they were wrong? This guy did look and sound like a cop. And he had a badge—but he didn’t have an ID.

  Shayne felt a cold sweat break out.

  His children… What if they had entertained some kind of real crook, a killer? What if Gabe Lange was just what this guy said he was, and DeFeo had come upon them just in time to save them?

  “Officer DeFeo,” he said, “you may be all that you say you are, but we don’t know that any more than we know that he isn’t who he claims to be. Just wait it out. When we can, we’ll get to the authorities, and if we’ve wronged you, I’ll apologize a thousand times over.”

  DeFeo shook his head, disgusted. “And what if he breaks out? Who is watching him next? Your sister, right? What if she falls for his act?”

  “My sister isn’t stupid.”

  “Not unless he talks her into being stupid. I’m sure he’s given her all kinds of speeches on how wonderful she is at something, at how she needs to trust her instincts and have belief in herself and all that. That’s his game. I know this guy—trust me,” DeFeo said.

  “She’s not going to fall for any lines. She’s in a relationship.”

  DeFeo laughed. “Sure. And he’s making her doubt that relationship.”

  “This conversation is going nowhere,” Shayne said. “I’m not letting you go.”

  “Just because your father is a fo—just because your father is misguided is no reason for you to wind up caught in the trap. You’re taking a chance with your children. That’s damn dangerous, my friend. I’m telling you, he’s been using you. When he was done playing his game, when your mother had cooked everything up for a great turkey dinner, your family would have been done for. You really want to thank your lucky stars that I found this old house when I did.”

  “My father isn’t a fool, DeFeo. He’s done the one really smart thing—he’s refused to take either of you at face value.”

  “Sure, that would be smart. If it weren’t possible that Gabe would escape—and bring us all down, because I’m handcuffed and can’t help you. Let’s pray he doesn’t get his hands on that shotgun, that’s all I have to say.”

  Shayne didn’t answer him. He couldn’t help but listen to him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was right.

  DeFeo was silent for a while. “Cute kids,” he said finally, as if he felt the need to talk about something.

  “Yep.”

  “You here with them alone? Where’s the wife? Oh, sorry, you’re divorced, I take it.”

  “Yep.”

  “I’ve been down that path,” DeFeo said. “I guess she was good to let you have them for Christmas. Usually, after a divorce, the mother has the power. Fathers are screwed. They pay all the bills, and the wives either hound them for more support, or play games, not even letting the dads see the kids.”

  “You’re divorced?”

  DeFeo nodded. “I spent hours working. She spent them at a gym. Took off with a personal trainer, and still got the kids. And I still pay the bills.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Hope you get them for a while around the holidays.”

  “She claimed she wanted the holiday, and then, turns out the trainer dude she was seeing didn’t want kids at the holidays. But, this year, I had to work, so
it was too bad.” He smiled. “Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t be happy, but he took off for San Diego without her. So, she has the kids for Christmas.”

  “How many?”

  “I have the same thing as you—my boy is ten, and my little girl is five.”

  “Mine are nine and six.”

  “Just about the same.”

  Shayne shifted, pulling his scarf higher around his face; it was really cold in the garage.

  “What’s the weather doing? Can you see from there?”

  “It’s still dark and gray, but no snow.”

  “I’m just saying, I hope your dad can carry through his plan to get us somewhere before Gabe Lange makes his break. Because, if not, well, it’s going to be one hell of a Christmas.”

  “This is just ridiculous,” Morwenna said.

  Her father was pacing in the parlor; Stacy was trying to distract Connor and Genevieve with their new toys, but the children had picked up on the tension in the air.

  Mike walked to the window. “The snow is deep. If it starts up again and we’re walking down to the tavern, someone could really get hurt. I wish it would just do something, one way or the other.”

  “Well, it’s like an ice age out there,” Morwenna said. “I’m going to get blankets, and we’ll go and spell Bobby and Shayne. They have to be half-frozen, and we’ve got to do something for both those men, since we’ve no idea which man is the good one.”

  “Gabe is really nice,” Genevieve said. “How could he be a bad man?”

  Mike looked at his granddaughter. He walked over to her, hunkered down and pulled her to him, hugging her tenderly. “Sometimes, it’s just hard to tell. And sometimes, we have to really listen and weigh everything that’s going on. Sometimes, wolves wear sheep’s clothing,” he said.

  “I’ll get the blankets, Dad,” Morwenna said.

  “There are plenty extra in the hall closet,” Stacy said. “And there are some of those little hot packets that you all use when you go out sometimes. They’re in a box in the closet, too. Hang on. I’ll fix a couple of thermoses with coffee,” Stacy said.